Opinions and views from expert CFOZone members.

The panel set up to look at establishing new accounting rules for private companies has completed its final public meeting and is one step closer to detailing how such rules should be developed.

The panel, set up at year-end last year by the Financial Accounting foundation (FAF), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, made two major recommendations coming out of the final public meeting.

Jack Ciesielski has a new report out that puts banks' arguments against fair value squarely in their place. And the analysis alone should make short shrift of the industry's complaints, though it no doubt will do nothing of the sort.

The accounting expert and investment adviser who runs The Analyst's Accounting Observer finds that banks account for 96 percent of all the asset markdowns to the balance sheets of the S&P 500 that he estimates would result from enactment of the Financial Accounting Standard Board's latest proposal.

Large US banks have reduced hard-to-value Level 3 assets since the beginning of the year, according to quarterly filings, but it doesn't mean their balance sheets are in better shape.

The decline was modest for some banks, especially compared with the sharp improvement in 2009 when banks raised equity and reduced leverage. In addition, the recent requirements to consolidate off-balance sheet vehicles helped remove some assets from the Level 3 bucket--but only to reclassify them under different categories on balance sheets.

When it comes to convergence of accounting standards between the US and the rest of the world, it's often one step forward, two steps back.

Last week, as part of global convergence, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board released a joint proposal to change accounting and reporting of financial instruments and the statement of comprehensive income. It was the first of a series of joint proposals to come from the two boards by the third quarter of 2010, representing an important push toward global accounting convergence.

As we reported recently, one of the biggest concerns of IASB/FASB accounting standard convergence is the alacrity with which the IASB gave in to political pressure to ease banks’ fair value reporting standards during the financial crisis. However the IASB is now presented with the chance to quell fears and dispel the belief that it is under the thumb of the European Union – whether they will remains to be seen.

This issue comes once again to the fore as new EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier, at a recent meeting of top accounting firms and regulators in London, inferred that future funding for the IASB could depend on its' agreeing to more involvement by EU leaders. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Barnier said policymakers in Brussels planned to review current IASB funding – of $6.5 million – annually and that it was “premature” to think that they would increase that budget. This came after statements suggesting that the EU should be more involved in IASB governance, which left the audience stunned, according to the FT.

Back in July my colleague Ron Fink was fretting that the Financial Accounting Standards Board was going to give banks a permanent break from fair value.

The accounting standards setter in April had given financial institutions leeway in how they could account for toxic mortgages and other illiquid assets. Three months later it looked like they would retain that discretion for the foreseeable future.

But FASB isn't going completely soft here. In a release Friday, the board proposed new disclosures about recurring and nonrecurring fair value measurements.